A June of Ordinary Murders (45 page)

‘That would be good,' Swallow replied.

They regained the Heath. Bracken pulled the reins, bringing the trap off the road and calling ‘whoa' to the pony. He had chosen a shaded spot with a rising bank of grassy earth, indicating some long-disused ditch or fortification.

‘There you are now. That's a fine space for you to put out your refreshments.'

He dismounted from the car, dropped the step and helped his passengers to the ground. He let down a sideboard from the trap and placed the picnic basket on it. Then he led the pony free of the shafts to a grassy spot where it could graze.

‘Now Ma'am,' he smiled at Maria. ‘I'm sure that you'll want to arrange things yourself.'

The sun was hot. The midland air was heavy and scented with summer. Lily and Maria began to set out the picnic things. The driver stepped away from the car. He struck a match, put it to the bowl of his pipe, drew in deeply and let out two or three puffs. He gestured away to the west.

‘Over there now, you'll just see the ridges of the Slieve Bloom Mountains. And over there…' he turned and pointed across the Heath, ‘… you'll see the remains of the Castle of Dunamase, where the lords of these parts, the O'Moores, had their stronghold.'

Lily had the basket open and Maria had spread out a cloth with napkins, plates and cutlery. Maria's housekeeper had packed a good basket. There was a fresh white loaf, cuts of cold meat and chicken, fruit cake, apples and a bottle of Burgundy.

‘Can we offer you something?' Lafeyre inquired of Bracken.

‘Not at all, Sir, thanks,' the driver laughed. ‘I have me own provisions here.'

He drew a naggin bottle of clear liquid – illicit whiskey Swallow assumed – from his coat pocket. ‘I'll stroll a bit and let ye enjoy your party. I won't be far gone. Ye can call me when ye want to move on.'

He ambled away through the yellow furze.

After she had set the picnic things, Lily put up her parasol to create a pool of shade beside the car. Lafeyre started to recount how they had gained access to the records at the orphanage and what they had learned from them.

‘So, you're saying that the murdered woman from the Chapelizod Gate was a child of Alderman Thomas Fitzpatrick and this Cecilia Downes and that she was raised there at the orphanage?' Maria furrowed her brow in concentration. ‘And Alderman Fitzpatrick's servant, the girl taken from the canal, was raised there too, at the same time?'

Lafeyre nodded.

‘And they had another child also – a boy – John Michael?'

Lafeyre nodded again. ‘The records show that Cecilia or Ces Downes had children by Fitzpatrick, at least two. On both occasions the children were lodged at Greenhills House under their mother's name.'

‘And at some point Ces Downes abandoned her life as a servant and became a professional criminal,' Swallow added. ‘Or, more accurately, she went back to being a criminal.

‘The police picked up rumours that she had children. But there weren't any available records to confirm that. Louise must have gone to live in England after leaving the orphanage. At some point she took the family name, “Thomas.” She may have married a man called Thomas. Or Thomas may have been an alias, perhaps taken from her father's name. We don't know yet.'

‘We also know that Louise, Ces's daughter, then became mother to at least one child,' Lafeyre said grimly. ‘And that child was murdered with her.'

Swallow could see comprehension and distress in Maria's eyes.

‘It's a dreadful story,' she said quietly. ‘I hope you've learned what you came here to find out. And I hope you can solve these terrible crimes. But I wish you could have found some other way of getting this information. I don't want to be involved in this sort of thing any more. Nor, I'm sure, does Lily.'

She shot an angry look at Lafeyre and Swallow. ‘I hope you both understand that.'

The women had completed laying out the food when Bracken's pony looked up sharply from its grazing and cocked its ears. At that moment an open car with four men clattered in from the pathway across the grass. The car slewed to a halt beside them, the horse snorting from its gallop.

Swallow recognised Richard Pomeroy, the guardian from Greenhills. The man sitting beside him was the shadow with the Derby hat that he had seen twice earlier in the day. The other two looked like labourers or farm-hands. Swallow saw the driver take up a long, black cudgel from the seat beside him. His companion held a double-barrelled shotgun.

Pomeroy dismounted. The man with the shotgun raised the weapon to shoulder height and levelled it. Pomeroy's driver climbed down and ran to take the bridle of Bracken's horse where it had resumed its grazing.

‘I don't know who you damned people are,' he hissed, ‘but by God you've made a serious mistake here today. Wherever you're from, you're not from the Board of Educational Guardians.'

He stepped forward. ‘You've got property belonging to Greenhills House that you've stolen. I'll give you one chance now to return it to me.' He extended his hand.

Bracken suddenly emerged from the side of the clearing. He saw the man holding his pony's bridle and shouted.

‘You there, leave go of my horse…'

At the sound of Bracken's voice the man with the shotgun swivelled and fired. Orange flame spurted from the twin barrels. Bracken's hat flew into the air, carried off by the blasts. He stood, frozen in shock but apparently uninjured with the shots gone high.

Lafeyre's reflexes were instantaneous.

He caught Lily's waist and pushed her down behind Bracken's car. Swallow saw a revolver appear in Pomeroy's hand. The man with the Derby hat leaped from the car, lost his balance and landed, cursing, on the grass. The man with the shotgun was fumbling to reload his weapon.

Swallow drew his Webley Bulldog from its shoulder-holster. He levelled the revolver at Pomeroy.

‘I'm armed. Drop your weapon. Drop your weapon! And tell that man to drop the bloody shotgun!'

From the corner of his eye, Swallow saw Maria's arm rise in an arc to hurl the Burgundy bottle at Pomeroy. It hit him full across the forehead. There was a yell of pain. He splayed his fingers, dropping the gun to the ground. Then his hands went up to the bleeding gash over his eyes as he sank to his knees.

The man with the shotgun had reloaded both barrels. He snapped the weapon shut. Swallow swung the Bulldog to point to his chest.

‘Put down the bloody gun. Put it down or I'll shoot, I bloody well swear it.'

The man raised the shotgun to his shoulder. Swallow lowered the angle of the Bulldog and fired a warning shot into the ground.

The man with the shotgun started to take aim.

Swallow swung the revolver up and fired instantly. The massive .44 calibre bullet hit the man's left leg above the knee. Swallow saw a spout of bright red blood as he cartwheeled from the car down to the grass. The shotgun flew from his hands and clattered against the side of Bracken's car. Lafeyre stepped forward and seized the weapon as it came to earth.

Suddenly, Bracken swung a heavy fist at the man who had been holding his horse's reins. He shouted something that Swallow could not catch. The horse and car lurched forward, knocking against the man. He grabbed at the animal's harness for support, but Bracken wrestled him forward to the open ground.

‘Ye blackguard,' Bracken spat. ‘Would ye try to take me horse?' He kicked the man twice, hard, in the back and ribs. Then he kicked him again and hauled him to his feet. The man staggered to Pomeroy's side and raised his hands over his head, moaning in pain.

Lafeyre had broken the shotgun at the breach. He hurled the cartridges far away into the furze, then he threw the weapon to the ground and went to where the wounded gunman was lying on the grass. The blood was coming in spurts from his leg. From the corner of his eye Swallow saw the shadow – now bareheaded – pick himself up and sprint to the bank of high ground to disappear from sight.

Lafeyre ran an expert hand along the wounded gunman's leg.

‘Take the coat off one those fellows,' he told Lily, gesturing to Pomeroy and his driver. ‘Tear out the lining. I need two or three long strips to make a tourniquet, hurry.'

He drew a penknife and sawed at the wounded man's trousers. Lily slashed the lining on the driver's jacket, using one of the picnic knives. She handed two strips of the material to Lafeyre. He lashed them around the wounded man's upper leg, hauling on the ends before tying two firm knots into place.

Lafeyre snapped at Pomeroy who had clamped a handkerchief to his bleeding forehead.

‘Delay for even a little while and your man will die from blood loss. Put him into your car and get him to the infirmary at Maryborough as quickly as you can.'

Swallow jerked his Webley Bulldog towards the attackers' car. He shouted at the other two.

‘You heard that. Get him into the car and get to hell out of here before I change my mind and shoot all three of you.'

Pomeroy's gun lay on the grass where he had fallen. Swallow opened the magazine, ejected the ammunition and threw it as far as he could across the high bank. Then he flung the weapon itself into the furze in the opposite direction.

Pomeroy's forehead was still bleeding from where the Burgundy bottle had hit him. But he took the injured gunman's legs while his companion lifted him under the arms.

By now the pain from the man's shattered leg was coming through. He screamed as they put him on the floor of the open car. The driver cracked the horse's reins to start the vehicle moving across the grass and back on to the roadway.

Swallow emptied the spent shells from his own revolver and reloaded the chambers.

Bracken was nursing a bruised hand.

‘Jesus Christ, I didn't bargain on this. We could have all been killed, murdered. Let me get home out of here … come on. I have a safe way back to the town that'll keep us off the roadway. We have to move fast.'

‘There isn't time to take care of this stuff.' He gestured to the picnic things on the sideboard that he had earlier let down from the car. With a sweep of his arm he tumbled the food, crockery, glasses and cutlery into the grass.

He let down the step and quickly helped Lily and Maria to board the car. Swallow and Lafeyre followed. He touched the pony's flank with his whip and picked up speed as soon as they reached the track he had chosen across the back of the heath.

‘In the name of God and his Holy Mother,' he shouted to Swallow as the car bucked and rattled beneath them. ‘What's goin' on here? I thought ye told me ye were from the Board of Education. There's nothin' much to do with education about that business back there, is there?'

‘Police business,' Swallow shouted back, ‘I can't tell you any more than that. I'm sorry for getting you involved, Mr Bracken.'

Bracken spat over his shoulder into the ditches flying by. ‘Ah dammit, you should ‘a told me what you were at before we set out. I'd have brought me own shotgun along. And who are them bastards back there?'

‘To tell you the truth, I'm not sure myself,' Swallow said. ‘And even if I knew, you might be better off not hearing it.'

‘Well, you're a fair shot with that big revolver, anyway,' Bracken retorted.

‘You're well able to take care of yourself as well, Mr Bracken, from what I saw,' Swallow said.

Bracken nodded grimly. ‘Ah, sure I did a bit o' boxin' in the army. I was in the Leinsters over at the Crinkill barracks near Parsonstown. And I'm not past it yet, if I have to deal with a couple of blackguards.'

Half an hour of fast driving later they drew into the railway station at Maryborough. Swallow had half expected to encounter some of Major Kelly's agents waiting for them, but the platform was empty. There was nobody in the waiting rooms apart from two women with a small child.

Swallow paid Bracken his fare and added a further shilling as a tip.

‘Ah, sure it'll cover the cost of me hat,' Bracken grinned, pocketing the money.

The four travellers stepped down from the car. In the distance Swallow heard the whistle of the approaching Dublin train.

THIRTY-SEVEN

‘We did well to make it back without any further encounters with your persecutors from the Upper Yard,' Lafeyre said, sipping at a stiff whiskey. They were seated in the drawing room of his house on Harcourt Street.

‘I'd guess that Major Kelly and his gang mightn't be so keen to get in your way again after what happened out on the heath,' he said with unconvincing jocularity.

‘If that fellow with the shotgun ever walks again I suspect it'll be with a bad limp. And as for your shadow with the Derby hat, I doubt if he's stopped running yet.'

Scollan had met them at King's Bridge with the brougham. Once the train came to a halt, Swallow had scanned the platforms and the station concourse to see if he could spot anyone who might be waiting, whether to shadow them or to confront them, but there was no surveillance that he could detect.

‘It wouldn't take Kelly's people long to work out what we've learned at Greenhills House,' Lafeyre said. ‘They know that we've had access to the records. That's what sent Pomeroy and his gang after us.'

‘I'm surprised the registry books weren't already destroyed,' Swallow mused. ‘Pomeroy and his people would have understood the significance of records linking a public man like Fitzpatrick with two young children committed to their care.'

Lafeyre grimaced. ‘I suspect it's precisely because they did understand it that they held on to the records. And it's why they came after us. That sort of information is valuable. You can be sure that Mr Pomeroy and his associates were able to get their money's worth out of Fitzpatrick over the years, knowing that they had the goods on a wealthy businessman.'

Swallow had a mental image of two young children in Greenhills House, an inconvenience to the parents who had brought them into the world and a source of profitable extortion for Pomeroy. His exhilaration at the breakthrough in the investigation gave way to a sense of anger.